Photographer Phil Sharp tells Londoners’ hidden narratives, and how they interlink, in [non]fictions

Perhaps better known to It’s Nice That readers as a portrait photographer – for his Ermine Street series and Portrait of Britain cover shot – Phil Sharp has been experimenting with landscape and narrative. His latest series, [ non]fictions depicts individuals within a London scene, each with their own story in the caption (which you can read here). Aiming to play with fact and fiction, the series appears – like much of his work – documentary-based, but is in fact concocted by Phil.

“It started off with me wanting to find a way to combine landscapes and portraiture,” the photographer explains. “I liked the idea of taking an interesting landscape, or topographic photograph, and seeing how the addition of a figure changed the way the viewer connected with it.”

His first experiments can be seen in earlier series The Human Landscape but Phil says he wanted more control, and to construct the images himself. So in [ non]fictions, every subject is an actor, who has devised a character for the portrait. After discussing these with the actors, Phil chose the location and collaborated with the subjects on creating the scene in which their character would appear.

The photographs are cinematic in composition and lighting, which Phil says adds to these questions of fact vs fiction, staged vs real, while their consistent framing brings cohesiveness across the different stories and settings.

Taken around London, the photographs capture a moment in each characters’ journey, and the series is intended to be viewed in sequence, with each subject connected to the ones before and after in some way. “It’s a sort of six degrees of separation idea, and a reminder that our behaviours affect people outside of our immediate circle.”

More like this:

2018 marked the 50th anniversary of the original publication of photography focused, Provoke magazine. In November of last year, the independent Tokyo-based bookshop and publisher Nitesha reissued all three magazines of the rare publication into one eye-opening compendium. Portraying post-war Japan and the country’s socioeconomic tribulations of the 1960s unlike any other photographic journal; Provoke established a legendary reputation amongst Japanese photography fans for its historical and aesthetic insight.

John Edmonds is a Brooklyn-based photographer whose tender imagery and portraiture hones in on the “performative gestures and self-fashioning of young black men on the streets of America”. With a significant body of work exploring themes of identity, community and desire, John’s first monograph titled Higher brings together four series made between 2011 and 2018.

Currently showing at the Museum of the City of New York, a unique exhibition is filling the walls of the galleries. Titled Interior Lives: Contemporary Photographs of Chinese New Yorkers, this exhibition provides an unseen glimpse into the lives of the largest ethnic Chinese population outside of Asia.

While on a solo trip through the Argentinian Lake District photographer Alice Zoo chanced across a travelling circus setting up its stage. Both Alice and the performers seemed to have arrived in town at the same time, as the photographer spotted them putting together a Big Top tent as she walked back to her accommodation one night.

For photographer Maximilian Virgili, travel opens up possibilities for his work. Settling in the medium as a documentary, travel-focused photographer, his discovery of this niche was largely “because whenever I travelled I had time to really focus on my work,” he tells It’s Nice That. This time spent in another part of the world melted away any worries the photographer had; he felt confident to try new ideas and the processing of the photographs would happen when he returned home. It gave him the room to do what photographers do best: take pictures.

Agnieszka Chabros is a fine art photographer and casting director based in Melbourne. With an impressive roster of clients that includes Novembre, i-D and Vice UK, this highly-commissionable photographer was recently employed by Vogue Italia to photograph a series called Cowboys for the famous fashion magazine.

For the past 11 years It’s Nice That’s mission to champion creativity has remained at the core of what we do. The team here are committed to bringing you the best and most inspiring creative work from across the world, organising events that will entertain you, and producing magazines you will cherish for years to come.

Even if, technically speaking, working on illustrations is Antti Kalevi’s job, it seems as if he just can’t stop himself finding things to draw. For Antti, artistic inspiration is everywhere and most commonly found through “travelling, food, music and the fine arts". These moments then filter into his illustrative practice once he photographs his surroundings of simply anything that catches his eye.

2018 marked the 50th anniversary of the original publication of photography focused, Provoke magazine. In November of last year, the independent Tokyo-based bookshop and publisher Nitesha reissued all three magazines of the rare publication into one eye-opening compendium. Portraying post-war Japan and the country’s socioeconomic tribulations of the 1960s unlike any other photographic journal; Provoke established a legendary reputation amongst Japanese photography fans for its historical and aesthetic insight.

John Edmonds is a Brooklyn-based photographer whose tender imagery and portraiture hones in on the “performative gestures and self-fashioning of young black men on the streets of America”. With a significant body of work exploring themes of identity, community and desire, John’s first monograph titled Higher brings together four series made between 2011 and 2018.

Hello and welcome to what is traditionally regarded as the most depressing day of the year. Isn’t that a simultaneously bleak and comforting prospect? Today might be hell but look, in a few hours it’s all over and the rest of 2019 will be an absolute breeze.

Mention Final Fantasy in conversation and you’ll notice it often creates a sudden pause. A former player will tend to become misty-eyed as they relive joyful hours spent plonked in front of the telly, engulfed in a role-playing game that changed teenage lives and the face of video gaming. The seventh edition of Final Fantasy, released in 1997 ten years after the first iteration, causes this reaction more than any other game of its ilk. Final Fantasy VII was in fact so seminal that at the beginning of 2017 it warranted a 27,000-word essay by Polygon’s features editor Matt Leone titled 500 Years Later: An Oral History of Final Fantasy VII. Just a few days after it was published online, the plans to reimagine Matt’s essay as a book had already begun.

“I used to think we lived in a styleless age,” says the New York-based illustrator Tug Rice. “Early on, my illustrations tried to infuse some glamour into the world I saw… But now, I’ve come to appreciate the beauty and sophistication of this decade.” Tug’s theatrically-realistic style of illustration is less and less seen in contemporary illustration circles, but its elegance and fluidity continue to beguile clients, making his kind of illustration highly commissionable despite its more traditional roots.

Scottish-born, London-based designer Caterina Bianchini joined us at December’s Nicer Tuesdays at the tail end of last year, taking us through the process behind her work which filtered into See You At The Dance, a recent book compiling her poster work.

This week’s Friday Mixtape comes from not just one It’s Nice That illustration favourite, but two! While at After School Club in Offenbach during the summer of last year, we had a beer with resident illustrators Jan Buchczik and Timo Lenzen who told us about their love of music, often listening together in their shared studio.

London-based design and art direction studio B.A.M recently started work on its identity for White Cube gallery, with an unusual aim: “I have a strong view that an identity, especially for White Cube, should be invisible,” co-founder of the studio David McKendrick tells It’s Nice That. Across its galleries the White Cube houses impeccable artworks and B.A.M quickly identified this as a focal point. In turn, the studio didn’t want to design an identity which would draw eyes away from the likes of Gilbert and George or Tracey Emin, but instead, build the graphic design foundations which would house the artworks, and enhance them too.

There’s a new VR game coming out at the end of this month, and it’s sure to give Beat Saber a run for its money. The brainchild of renowned games designer Sos Sosowski, Mosh Pit Simulator was actually created by accident two years ago when Sos was playing around with simple AI algorithms to programme human models. This serendipitous discovery informs the basis of Mosh Pit Sumlator, whose characters, called “zombies”, flip-flop around in jerky movement according to the code: “if chest is below 1m, bump chest up”. The premise for Mosh Pit Simulator centres around these manic, “brainless, boneless humanoid creatures” in this highly anticipated, albeit slightly mad, new game.

“I wouldn’t call this a book about fashion. Some men talk about fashion, many simply talk about clothes; there’s a distinction,” explains Eliot Haworth, on the new release from the makers of Fantastic Man: What Men Wear. An anthology of Fantastic Man’s online feature Questionnaire which instigates conversations from one question – “What garment is key to your personal style?” – the publication brings together a selection of insightful figures to create an oral history of male dressing in the 21st Century.

Currently showing at the Museum of the City of New York, a unique exhibition is filling the walls of the galleries. Titled Interior Lives: Contemporary Photographs of Chinese New Yorkers, this exhibition provides an unseen glimpse into the lives of the largest ethnic Chinese population outside of Asia.

Illustrator Isabella Cotier’s work has an expressive energy to it that can only really be achieved when you’re working from life. Her depictions of characters observed as they go about their daily lives are funny, vivid, loose and immediate; capturing moments without necessarily being literal.

While on a solo trip through the Argentinian Lake District photographer Alice Zoo chanced across a travelling circus setting up its stage. Both Alice and the performers seemed to have arrived in town at the same time, as the photographer spotted them putting together a Big Top tent as she walked back to her accommodation one night.

Those of you with a memory for such things will likely be able to recall the last piece of work by filmmaker Jenny Schweitzer we featured on It’s Nice That. Girls in Chess was, as the title suggests, an exploration of the gender gap in the world of competitive American scholastic chess. It was charming, funny, warm – the sort of short film you foist upon friends and family, knowing full well that they’ll love it as much as you did. Now turning her lens towards an open, honest, and at times hilarious account of life in a retirement home nestled on the shore of the Hudson River in the Bronx, New York. We’re almost certain that her latest project, The Blessings of Aging, will garner the same reaction.

In February 2016, London-based publisher and filmmaker Freddie Fraser-Forsyth launched topsafe.tv, a platform to showcase films made without briefs or brand involvement. Through providing this platform, and a resulting collaboration with Stop Play Record, Freddie met a load of people he wouldn’t have otherwise, and received a whole load more cold email submissions from directors. “Through these experiences I learned what the London film industry at grassroots level was like and how difficult it was to make work you love,” he tells us of the decision to start his magazine Next 2 Nothing.

As a visual artist, the pressure to be current and “cool” can weigh you down. Korean born-and-raised, now New York-based illustrator Haleigh Mun tells It’s Nice That about her creative development to embrace her own visual style, whether it’s seen as cutting-edge, or not.

Websites, publications, identities, typefaces – Switzerland-based design studio Omnigroup can do it all. What started out as a loose collaboration between Luke Archer, Leonardo Azzolini, Frederik Mahler-Andersen and Simon Mager, is now a fully-functioning studio working on a variety of projects in the fields of art, design and music.

Scottish filmmaker Duncan Cowles took to the stage at December’s Nicer Tuesdays event. With his deadpan humour in tow, Duncan talked us through his collection of films so far, from the infamous The Lady with the Lamp made while he was studying at Edinburgh College of Art, to his more recent Taking Stock for Channel 4’s Random Acts and It’s Not Amazing Enough for TED.

This Winter It’s Nice That is partnering with Adobe Stock on a series of articles that celebrate their collection of millions of high-quality images, graphics, video motion graphics, templates, and branding materials. This also includes a large collection of logo and identify motifs and illustrations designers can utilise during the research of a project.

Los Angeles: songs, sagas and whole industries have been built within the city. It’s no mean feat to document the self-proclaimed “city of angels” through the landscapes of two-dimensional print, but graphic designer Stefanie Tam achieves this in the form of three books centred around a personal love letter to the city.

London-based photographer Ronan McKenzie was our second speaker at December’s Nicer Tuesdays, taking the audience through her portfolio of work to date, honing in on a recent exhibition she put on, I’m Home in October 2018.

“When I draw, I like to think about the nature and structure of each line. How the concepts and ideas are hidden in their own morphology. And how the metaphors and the allegories are created with it,” says Rotterdam-based artist José Quintanar AKA José Ja Ja Ja. Working across narrative drawings, illustration and books, José’s practice sees him exploring the possibilities of drawing as a tool, and his work has been published by The New York Times, Vice, Esquire and many more.

Graphic design studio Arc specialises in printed matter but, occasionally, drifts over into the realms of web and exhibition design. Founded by Joachim Bartsch, Timo Grimberg and Toni Schönbuchner, the Berlin-based studio has an impressive turnover of projects; paying homage to the Swiss school of design with their typography-centred layouts.

Regular Practice is a London-based design studio comprising of Tom Finn and Kristoffer Soelling. Having met at the Royal College of Art, the duo has produced project after project with beautiful graphics – and sound concepts to back them up. Including a self-populating work for the identity of their previous college, and an architectural journal for the University of Puerto Rico, a constant across the duo’s portfolio is microscopic attention to experimental type and printing techniques.

Previous to completing her master’s degree at the Royal College of Art, artist Viviana Troya studied fine art in her native country of Colombia. Having graduated last year, Viviana is now exhibiting as part of the Bloomberg New Contemporaries at Peckham’s South London Gallery, showing her latest work Hatchery until 24 February this year.

For photographer Maximilian Virgili, travel opens up possibilities for his work. Settling in the medium as a documentary, travel-focused photographer, his discovery of this niche was largely “because whenever I travelled I had time to really focus on my work,” he tells It’s Nice That. This time spent in another part of the world melted away any worries the photographer had; he felt confident to try new ideas and the processing of the photographs would happen when he returned home. It gave him the room to do what photographers do best: take pictures.

London-based creative agency Anyways, a sister company to It’s Nice That and part of the HudsonBec Group, always approaches projects by looking for meaningful ways to display creativity. One of the agency’s most recent projects is two animated shorts for workspace company Fora, announcing its new locations in Soho and Spitalfields. The animations may differ in location and animator, but the historical context and vibrant communities of each area are at the heart of Anyways’ art direction.

Joining us from Germany for the last Nicer Tuesdays talk of 2018 was the renowned illustrator, Christoph Niemann. An illustrator celebrated for his endlessly-brilliant portfolio of books and spot illustrations for publications, Christoph joined us to talk through a larger project: a mural.

We use cookies on this website to analyse your use of our products and services, provide content from third parties and assist with our marketing efforts. Learn more about our use of cookies and available controls: cookie policy. Please be aware that your experience may be disrupted until you accept cookies.